How far can your content go without SEO?

There are content marketers who think that thought-provoking, helpful and engaging content pieces can automatically be discovered and don’t need the technical push of SEO. Any writer would love to deny the role of SEO in the success of his or her content. But it’s a myth. Creating content without any understanding of the audience and what they want to consume, is similar to practising archery blindly.

SEO is a technical process of increasing traffic and quality of visitors to a website. Content marketing involves creating content that doesn’t promote the brand on the face but stimulates a consumer’s interests in the brand through videos, blogs, social media posts, audio, etc.

Content cannot survive without SEO; in fact both can’t exist without each other. Both content marketing and SEO go hand in hand. Content marketing without SEO and vice versa is like a pen without ink. The marketing of content is equally imperative if spends need to be justified.

Shrutika Nagpal

Shrutika Nagpal, Director, Strategy and Creative, Scatter, said quality content can increase the stay time on your content, but it won't always help to get people to it.

She said, “Much like real life, the technically ‘best’ artworks aren't always the ones that have the hugest following — often being relegated to ‘niche’ groups and art enthusiasts, because the ‘masses’ go for what's easy and useful and relatable. The same applies to the online world. It's not just the quality of content that makes it go viral or reach a wide audience, but how much it seamlessly ties into exactly what people are looking for. And that's really the essence of SEO — answering people's questions.”

Asif Upadhye

Giving an example to explain why content marketing can’t do without a well-thought SEO strategy, Asif Upadhye, Co-founder, Director and Story Teller at Yellow Seed, said, “If you’re in the business of selling home appliances, you are likely to write content related to the terms that your audience is searching for. SEO steps in to help you determine the right keywords, the number of blogs you need to publish every month and review the structure of your website. While stellar content is responsible for making heads turn, it is SEO that builds trust and credibility.”

Payal Shah Karwa

Although, Payal Shah Karwa, Content Director, The Word Jockey (a creative content studio), pointed out that once the TG reaches your content through SEO, “Whether they will stick or drop off depends on the quality of your content. So as an analogy, SEO is like the usher in a cinema hall, but whether the audience will sit through or not will depend on how good your movie is.”

This is the second part of a two-part story where content marketing practitioners discuss the things to be kept in mind while deploying SEO in content marketing and if nicely created content can survive without SEO. The content marketers also discuss how a content marketing team should be married with an SEO team to fetch maximum results.

The first part that was published last week had content marketing practitioners discuss the importance of SEO in content, when can marketers go wrong with SEO in content marketing and how much SEO in content is not too much SEO, which ends up making the content stale.

Things to keep in mind when marrying SEO with content marketing

In the temptation to make a piece of content reach a larger audience, one can’t fool around with its quality by randomly placing keywords across the content. It has to be balanced.

Nagpal pointed out that including keywords in the content can hamper grammar but that isn't an excuse to not be useful. She explained, “SEO isn't just about including keywords after all, it's about structuring the content to reflect how people read, it's about creating a journey in content that doesn't stop at ‘what’ but also answers ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘where’, and more”.

She said that rather than thinking brand-first — ‘Hmm, what do we want to say about ourselves to unwitting readers who aren't thinking about us right now?’ — we simply transition to thinking search-first: ‘What is it that people want to know?’, and use that as a launch pad to start creating content.

Where marketers go wrong is looking at SEO as an excuse to drop the quality of content. She said, “It's almost like saying, ‘Giving people what they want isn't as important as what we want to put out, so quality isn't a priority’.”

According to Upadhye, the first rule that a brand must follow in creating what people actually want to read is to ensure that it is unique and original, because any kind of duplicate content will put your webpage right at the bottom of a search engine’s results for the sole reason that your content has nothing new to offer. “The bottom line is, following good SEO practices that are ethical and up to date is a sure-fire way to generate far more solid results in the long run.”

Karwa suggested that one must not stuff keywords by repeating them in every third sentence of content. “Repeat phrases sound like a woodpecker hammering your brain. It will give the reader a headache and put them off.”

Upadhye said producing content in a haphazard manner serves no real purpose and is often a waste of time simply because it is not reaching the right people. User-friendly SEO content can include anything from glossaries and directories to infographics, videos, lists, guides and blog posts. “Because when executed well, the synergy between SEO and content marketing is truly unmatched,” Upadhye said. 

Karwa said the Google algorithm can change anytime, so one needs to be constantly on the lookout and change your SEO strategy accordingly.

Should a branded content writer also have an expertise in SEO and vice versa?

Snehil Gautam

Snehil Gautam, Head of Marketing, REA India (parent company of Housing.com, PropTiger and Makaan.com), told BuzzInContent that at Housing.com, the content team is separate from the SEO team. But the content team is expected to know what kind of content the consumer wants.

He said, “In the utopian world, we would want one person to have knowledge of both SEO and content. But in the current scenario, generally, it isn’t the case. The content maker has more knowledge of what the user wants and creates content as per the user’s requirements. The SEO team is more technical. The amalgamation of both teams creates great content.”

Nagpal of Scatter believes that it is unwise to expect a content writer, who's a creative resource, and already (hopefully) specialises in ideation and writing, to also keep in mind how to identify the right keywords. But if the writer is told clearly which keywords to use, how often, and where, it shouldn't be a problem for the writer to implement it. She commented, “The fact is that even content that doesn't originate from SEO can be SEO-optimised, i.e., just because an idea doesn't come from analysing keywords, that doesn't mean the content we create around that idea cannot include the keywords in and around that subject that people use to search.”

Upadhye pointed to two different writing roles in the SEO-content marketing ecosystem: SEO content writing vs. SEO copywriting. While both serve a distinct purpose, choosing the right person for the job could be the defining factor in the success of your brand.

He said, "On the one hand, the goal of SEO content writing is to create quality, keyword-focused pieces that rank high on search engines. On the other hand, the aim of SEO copywriting is to convert traffic into sales. ‘Should a branded content writer also have expertise in SEO?’ It depends on a brand’s long- and short-term content marketing goals.”

He said while a ‘jack of all trades’ might be able to hold fort for a while, hiring an SEO specialist to carry out keyword research and selection and ensure that published content is accessible, is the smart way to get the best bang for your buck. A strong SEO content writer needs to primarily understand search intent, utilise diverse writing skills and have the ability to write for topics over keywords.